Lumber Liquidators - DataXstream

DataXstream’s Virtualization
Solution for Lumber Liquidators
complexity of coordination between groups. In a
physical environment, such accommodations are
both costly and complicated, but in the virtual
landscape, the IT team simply cloned the necessary
servers and placed them in the isolated sandbox.
“We were able to give the project team what it
needed faster than would have been possible with
physical hardware,” says Kinsey. “It’s a great example
of the flexibility you have to flip machines around
and make adjustments that are completely unrealistic
in a physical environment.”
Down the Virtual Road
The most important benefits of the virtualized environment,
according to Kinsey, are yet to come. Going
forward, Lumber Liquidators can quickly and efficiently
expand its IT landscape with greatly reduced
concerns about where to put the servers and who
will maintain them.
At a Glance
“We were able to give the
project team what it needed
faster than would have been
possible with physical hardware.”
— Jack Kinsey, Director of Network
Operations, Lumber Liquidators
Lumber Liquidators
Headquarters: Toano, Virginia
Industry: Hardwood flooring retailer
Revenue: $620 million (2010)
Employees: 1,000+
Company details:
• Founded in 1994 in a single warehouse
• Now operates stores in 46 US states and will
soon open stores in Canada
• Opened 37 new stores in 2010, with 40–50
planned in 2011
• NYSE ticker: LL
SAP solutions:
• SAP for Retail
• SAP NetWeaver BW
• SAP NetWeaver Portal
• SAP NetWeaver PI
• SAP Solution Manager
As an SAP systems integration and consulting firm
with over 14 years of experience implementing SAP
solutions, DataXstream specializes in the areas of integration,
upgrades, virtualization, cloud computing,
.NET Connector, SAP Solution Manager, and project
management. DataXstream’s rare combination of
project leadership, business process knowledge, and
SAP technical expertise lets its clients achieve higher
business performance and maximize their return
on investment.
Lumber Liquidators needed to deploy a hardware
platform that would support not only the company’s
initial implementation, but also future incremental
growth. Because this would be a new implementation,
the company was concerned with minimizing
total cost, delivering high availability and consistent
performance to an increasing number of users, and
simplifying the system maintenance for its streamlined
IT staff.
Leveraging its longstanding expertise with SAP
software, DataXstream tuned a virtualization solution
specifically to support current SAP needs, while
remaining flexible enough to grow incrementally as
new deployment phases started. As a result, Lumber
Liquidators reduced the amount of hardware by
two-thirds compared to a traditional solution, thereby
lowering its TCO.
Since 2002, DataXstream has leveraged the full
flexibility and cost-saving features of virtualization to
better meet the needs of its SAP customers. With a
thorough understanding of virtualization technology
coupled with SAP technical expertise, its experts have
developed best-practice techniques to successfully
architect SAP virtual storage infrastructures that can
meet even the most rigid uptime and business continuity
requirements.
For more information, visit www.dataxstream.com.
insiderprofiles.wispubs.com Reprinted with permission from the APR MAY JUN 2011 insiderprofiles